Robert Dylan is an American singer, songwriter, musician, painter, and writer. He has been influential in popular music and culture for more than five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when he became a reluctant "voice of a generation" with songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", which became anthems for the Civil Rights Movement and anti-war movement. Leaving behind his initial base in the American folk music revival, his six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone", recorded in 1965, enlarged the range of popular music.
Dylan's lyrics incorporate a wide range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed to the burgeoning counterculture. Initially inspired by the performances of Little Richard and the songwriting of Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, and Hank Williams, Dylan has amplified and personalized musical genres. His recording career, spanning more than 50 years, has explored the traditions in American song—from folk, blues, and country to gospel, rock and roll, and rockabilly to English, Scottish, and Irish folk music, embracing even jazz and the Great American Songbook. Dylan performs with guitar, keyboards, and harmonica. Backed by a changing lineup of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the Never Ending Tour. His accomplishments as a recording artist and performer have been central to his career, but his songwriting is considered his greatest contribution. Since 1994, Dylan has also published seven books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries.
As a musician, Dylan has sold more than 100 million records, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time. He has also received numerous awards including eleven Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2008 awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power." In May 2012, Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. In 2016, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".
“But to live outside the law, you must be honest.”
Song lyrics, Blonde on Blonde (1966), Absolutely Sweet Marie
Variant: But to live outside the law, you must be honest.
Source: da Absolutely Sweet Marie, n.° 11
“Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain”
Song lyrics, Time Out of Mind (1997), Not Dark Yet
Rolling Stone interview (21 June 1984)
“People are crazy and times are strange… I used to care but things have changed”
Song lyrics, The Essential Bob Dylan (2000), Things Have Changed (recorded 1999)
Variant: I used to care, but things have changed.
Context: People are crazy and times are strange
I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range,
I used to care, but things have changed.
“People disagreeing everywhere you look
Makes you wanna stop and read a book”
Song lyrics, Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II (1971), Watching the River Flow
Source: http://www.interferenza.com/bcs/interw/65-aug.htm Bob Dylan Interview
“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.”
Variant: Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet!
Song lyrics, Knocked Out Loaded (1986), Brownsville Girl (with Sam Shepard)
Song lyrics, Death is Not the End
“We're idiots, babe. It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.”
Song lyrics, Blood on the Tracks (1975), Idiot Wind
Context: Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats, blowing through the letters that we wrote.
Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves,
We're idiots, babe. It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.
Song lyrics, Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Like a Rolling Stone
Source: da Like a Rolling Stone, n.° 1
Context: Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse. When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose. You're invisible now. You've got no secrets to conceal.
“They’ll stone ya and then they’ll say, “good luck””
Song lyrics, Blonde on Blonde (1966), Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
“The sun's not yellow, it's chicken.”
Song lyrics, Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Tombstone Blues
Variant: The sun's not yellow, its chicken!
Source: da Tombstone Blues, 1965
Variant: A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.
“So many things that we never will undo
I know you're sorry, I'm sorry too.”
Song lyrics, Love and Theft (2001), Mississippi
Playboy Interview http://www.interferenza.com/bcs/interw/play78.htm (1978)
Song lyrics, Slow Train Coming (1979), When You Gonna Wake Up
“I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.
I said that.”
Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Talkin' World War III Blues
Source: Lyrics:1962 2001
Context: Half of the people can be part right all of the time,
Some of the people can be all right part of the time,
But all the people can't be all right all the time.
I think Abraham Lincoln said that.
I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.
I said that.
“The future for me is already a thing of the past.”
Song lyrics, Love and Theft (2001), Bye and Bye
Source: Bob Dylan - Love and Theft: Piano/Vocal/Guitar
Source: Chronicles: Vol. One (2004), p. 22
Context: I was heading for the fantastic lights. No doubt about it. Could it be that I was being deceived? Not likely. I don't think I had enough imagination to be deceived; had no false hope, either. I'd come from a long ways off and had started from a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else.
Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
“It was the first poetry that spoke my own language.”
On the influence of Jack Kerouac, as quoted in Jack Kerouac (2007) by Alison Behnke, p. 100
Context: Someone handed me Mexico City Blues in St. Paul [Minnesota] in 1959 and it blew my mind. It was the first poetry that spoke my own language.
“For the loser now will be later to win”
Song lyrics, The Times They Are A-Changin' (1964), The Times They Are A-Changin'
Context: Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s naming.’
For the loser now will be later to win
“I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet.”
Quoted in Robert Shelton's No Direction Home https://books.google.com/books?id=-IefAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22I+think+a+poet+is+anybody+who+wouldn%27t+call+himself+a+poet.%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22I+think+a+poet+is+anybody+who+wouldn%27t+call+himself+a+poet.+Anybody+who+could+possibly+call+himself+a+poet+just+cannot+be+a+poet.%22 (1986), p. 353
Context: I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet. Anybody who could possibly call himself a poet just cannot be a poet.
“Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon”
Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
Context: Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying
“Look out kid
It's somethin' you did
God knows when
But you're doin' it again”
Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Subterranean Homesick Blues
Context: Johnny's in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I'm on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in the trenchcoat
Badge out, laid off
Says he's got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It's somethin' you did
God knows when
But you're doin' it again
Bob Dylan: The Rolling Stone Interview http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/the-rolling-stone-interview-bob-dylan-19780126 by Jonathan Cott (26 January 1978)
“People call, say beware doll, you're bound to fall, you thought they were all, kiddin you.”
Song lyrics, Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Like a Rolling Stone
Context: Once upon a time you dressed so fine, threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you. People call, say beware doll, you're bound to fall, you thought they were all, kiddin you.
Rolling Stone #1078 (14 May 2009), p. 45
Context: It's peculiar and unnerving in a way to see so many young people walking around with cellphones and iPods in their ears and so wrapped up in media and video games. It robs them of their self-identity. It's a shame to see them so tuned out to real life. Of course they are free to do that, as if that's got anything to do with freedom. The cost of liberty is high, and young people should understand that before they start spending their life with all those gadgets.
“If you take whatever there is to the song away—the beat, the melody—I could still recite it.”
Interview with Paul Robbins (March, 1965)
Context: I find it easy to write songs. I been writing songs for a long time and the words to the songs aren't written out just for the paper; they're written as you can read it, you dig. If you take whatever there is to the song away—the beat, the melody—I could still recite it. I see nothing wrong with songs you can't do that with either—songs that, if you took the beat and the melody away, they wouldn't stand up because they're not supposed to do that, you know. Songs are songs.
“I ain't saying you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind”
Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
Context: I ain't saying you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right.
Song lyrics, Blonde on Blonde (1966), Visions of Johanna
“But goodbye's too good a word, babe
So I'll just say fare thee well”
Compare: "So I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road..." Paul Clayton, Who's Gonna Buy You Ribbons (When I'm Gone).
Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
Context: I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I'm bound, I can't tell
But goodbye's too good a word, babe
So I'll just say fare thee well
Song lyrics, Blood on the Tracks (1975), Tangled Up In Blue
Address to the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee (13 December 1963)
Context: There's no black and white, left and right to me anymore; there's only up and down and down is very close to the ground. And I'm trying to go up without thinking about anything trivial such as politics. They has got nothing to do with it. I'm thinking about the general people and when they get hurt.
Rolling Stone #1078 (14 May 2009), p. 45
Context: It's peculiar and unnerving in a way to see so many young people walking around with cellphones and iPods in their ears and so wrapped up in media and video games. It robs them of their self-identity. It's a shame to see them so tuned out to real life. Of course they are free to do that, as if that's got anything to do with freedom. The cost of liberty is high, and young people should understand that before they start spending their life with all those gadgets.
Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
“Who cares about the character? Just get up and act. You don’t have to explain it to me.”
Context: It’s not a character like in a book or a movie. He’s not a bus driver. He doesn’t drive a forklift. He’s not a serial killer. It’s me who’s singing that, plain and simple. We shouldn’t confuse singers and performers with actors. Actors will say, “My character this, and my character that.” Like beating a dead horse. Who cares about the character? Just get up and act. You don’t have to explain it to me.
Song lyrics, Desire (1976), Hurricane
Context: Here comes the story of The Hurricane, the man the authorities came to blame for something that he never done. Put in a prison cell, but one time he coulda been the champion of the world.
“Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown.”
Song lyrics, The Times They Are A-Changin' (1964), The Times They Are A-Changin'
Context: Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown.
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.
“Fearing not that I'd become my enemy in the instant that I preach”
Song lyrics, Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), My Back Pages
Context: In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand at the mongrel dogs who teach Fearing not that I'd become my enemy in the instant that I preach My existence led by confusion boats, mutiny from stern to bow.
“Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me.
In the jingle-jangle morning, I'll come following you.”
Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Mr. Tambourine Man
Context: Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me.
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me.
In the jingle-jangle morning, I'll come following you.
“We shouldn’t confuse singers and performers with actors.”
Context: It’s not a character like in a book or a movie. He’s not a bus driver. He doesn’t drive a forklift. He’s not a serial killer. It’s me who’s singing that, plain and simple. We shouldn’t confuse singers and performers with actors. Actors will say, “My character this, and my character that.” Like beating a dead horse. Who cares about the character? Just get up and act. You don’t have to explain it to me.
Song lyrics, Blonde on Blonde (1966), Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands
“May your heart always be joyful. May your song always be sung.”
Song lyrics, Planet Waves (1974), Forever Young
Context: May your hands always be busy. May your feet always be swift. May you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift. May your heart always be joyful. May your song always be sung. May you stay forever young.
“You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows”
Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Subterranean Homesick Blues
“I once loved a woman, a child I am told
I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul.”
Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
